Celebrating successes from the U-M Center for IPE’s first phase, while dreaming and planning for the future.
On a beautiful early summer evening in June 2022, longtime colleagues and new friends joined together at the Michigan League Courtyard. The University of Michigan Center for Interprofessional Education had planned the celebratory break to bring together colleagues and friends who haven’t seen each other much during the pandemic, as well as to welcome new colleagues and partners into our community–after they self-identified as having interest in this collaborative work during our extensive “road show” this past semester. This gathering was largely social–a break from months of hard work planning for the future, on top of two years of grueling volatility for educators and clinicians. We recognized achievements in IPE during the first half-decade–and as well as key faculty and staff who launched the Center. (See photos below.)
Raj Mangrulkar, Director of the Center for IPE, began his remarks by grounding the moment in emotions:
“ First, I feel honored to be here. Being able to follow Frank Ascione and the incredible work he did to start this movement with the amazing people across our three campuses in the Center’s First Phase is a true privilege. Second, I feel so grateful that you have chosen to be here in the midst of this summer heat wave, and most importantly, that by being here, you are expressing your curiosity and commitment to our mission.
“And our mission is simple: innovating and implementing interprofessional education, to improve the quadruple aims for our patients and communities. In essence, we commit to building better teams, partnering with our systems of health and health care, all in the service of better health.
“That is the essence of IPE: collaboration. And I believe there is no better university poised to build these teams from day 1 of each student’s experience here than the University of Michigan.”
Built around this social event was also intensive work for our workgroup leaders. We welcomed back our longtime colleague Lynne Sinclair, of the University of Toronto. She brought her expertise and experience in working with IPE centers across the globe to our workgroup leaders to help them focus on the specific needs of the global IPE community and where U-M can have the greatest impact.
We also began our leadership journey as a team, a first of its kind effort for the Center for IPE. Our IPE leaders are walking the walk of developing a strong foundation of interprofessional teamwork in order to maximize our collaborative leadership skills and approach to ultimately support the University’s journey towards this ideal future state of education and practice.
“Collaboration is in all of our DNA. We come together in communities to support and care for each other. THAT culture is what makes great teams, and that is why I’m confident we’ll have a tremendous impact in the Next Phase of our Center, working TOGETHER. Please give yourself permission to dream with us about this future.”